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'Educating Engineers' documents a range of solutions to the dilemmas facing the field of educating engineers across all areas.

Engineering mechanics encompasses the study of whether and how objects move. This book is appealing in that it presents mechanics as a relatively uncluttered science.

Students of lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to be underrepresented in American higher education, particularly at four-year institutions and more selective universities. Education researchers have shown that in the four year period following high school, low SES students are less likely to persist to a bachelor's degree or have graduate degree aspirations. The high number of significant differences between high and low SES groups found when analyzing data from the Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES or APPLE survey) suggests that research studies of student groups should consider controlling for SES. This may particularly be the case when looking at other traditionally underrepresented populations in engineering. The team was surprised by the number of differences between high and low SES--12 of the 21 APPLES variables had a significant difference. The results suggest that SES plays a role in professional persistence in engineering, confidence in technical skill sets, extracurricular fulfillment, perception of curriculum overload and general satisfaction with the collegiate experience. SES does not appear to play a role in other areas, such as academic persistence in engineering, academic disengagement or motivations for studying engineering.

There is strong evidence showing that the choice of undergraduate major has a significant net impact on future earnings. Other work shows motivational differences between men and women. In building on this previous work, this study looked at what motivates students in six different engineering majors to study engineering. The results of this study show that students' engineering major does matter when looking at what motivates them to study engineering. Findings suggest treating students in different majors differently when considering motivational factors of undergraduate engineering students.

This paper explores the career-related decision making of seniors enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs at two nationally recognized institutions. This strand of the Academic Pathways Study (APS) research revealed that many engineering students were undecided about their career plans, even late into their senior years and that many were deciding not to pursue engineering careers. In addition, the findings indicate that students' decision making about their post-graduate plans often takes place without the knowledge or influence of engineering faculty, who could conceivably provide valuable insights and guidance. Structuring such guidance into existing programs could ensure that qualified, talented graduates of engineering programs will use their skills and abilities in the service of engineering-related careers.

After several years of demanding study, new engineers graduate from higher education as professionals eager to apply their expertise to solving "real world" problems. Yet, the transition from school to the workplace involves a socialization process through which new graduates attempt to learn the specific tasks and expectations of their job and begin to integrate into the social context of the organization. This paper reports the findings of a study investigating the socialization experiences of newly hired engineers in a large US-based, global manufacturing company.

Mechanics courses tend to provide engineering students with a precise, mathematical, but less than engaging experience. Students often view the traditional approach as a mysterious body of facts and “tricks” that allow idealized cases to be solved. When confronted with more realistic systems, they are often at a loss as to how to proceed. To address this issue, this course empowers students to tackle meaningful problems at an early stage in their studies.

The Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES2) was administered in Spring 2008 to undergraduate engineering students at 21 American universities. Students took the 10-minute online survey that asked mainly multiple choice questions related to their undergraduate engineering experience. A final optional open-ended question asked, Is there anything else you want to tell us that we didn't already cover? This paper explores the responses from survey participants to this open-ended question. These open-ended responses provided a rich addition to the emerging quantitative research findings from the APPLES2 survey instrument. Issues important to students such as advising and gender were not subjects that were probed as part of the multiple choice survey questions. Additionally, there are a considerable number of untapped student experiences outside the classroom to be understood.